After a firestorm of
protest over the actions of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents
at a March 5 peace protest on the campus of Middle Tennessee State
University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen demanded that TBI
Director Larry Wallace change the agency's policies concerning
surveillance of public assemblies.

Wallace, whose tenure as director has been highly controversial, sent
undercover agents to the protest, which drew several hundred participants,
to gather information. Greg Elliott, a 17-year veteran of the TBI,
approached several speakers, identified himself as a TBI agent and
demanded the correct spelling of their names, their addresses and other
personal information. One protestor told WND, "I felt like I was
confronted by the Gestapo. I was literally afraid and horribly concerned."

''I told them I wanted a firm, written policy – to define parameters
under which they would monitor and make sure it is even-handed,'' Bredesen
told the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

Wallace complied.

According to a TBI press release, the new policy states, ''Agents will
not be assigned to lawful assemblies where no criminal activity is
suspected, unless their presence is requested by a federal law-enforcement
agency for purposes such as dignitary protection.'' The policy also calls
for multiple supervisory approvals

Another conflict surfaced when TBI legal counsel David Jennings
announced that all documents collected at the March 5 rally at MTSU had
been destroyed.

''I resent the fact that this information was collected by a state
employee on the state payroll, and they're not saying what was in those
reports,'' complained State Rep. Joe Fowlkes, chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, according to a report in the Tennessean.

State Rep. Frank Buck, the former long-term chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, told WTVF-TV in Nashville, ''I doubt the agent was
acting without the bureau's knowledge or consent. There's more to this
than meets the eye. It didn't happen by accident.''

Longtime TBI observers such as ethics specialist Grover Porter, a
retired professor from Tennessee State University, are pointing to the
incident as just another reason why the maverick agency needs legislative
oversight. Such an oversight body, Porter told WND, "should be authorized
to recommend discipline of TBI officials for improper behavior, and even
removal of the director if that becomes necessary for the good of the
agency."

Wallace's questionable activities as TBI director have been the subject
of numerous news reports, including close scrutiny by WND, over the past
several years. Wallace and Jennings admitted to the Commission for
Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies that they destroyed evidence
without proper court orders in 1994 and again in 1997 in order to pass the
CALEA accreditation review. In January 2001, a security guard at the TBI's
new, state-of-the-art headquarters in Nashville broke into the evidence
locker with a wire coat hanger and stole 24 kilos of cocaine being held as
evidence. It has also been widely alleged that Wallace has used his
position to block investigations of politically influential people in
Tennessee.

Bredesen, traveling the state to tout his new budget plan, told
gathered reporters about the March 5 incident: ''These were not outside
agitators. These were our own kids. We're not in the business of
intimidating people.''

An experienced print
journalist, Tony Hays is the
coauthor of WND's 18-part "Tennessee
Underworld" series on Al Gore. His recent 20-part series on narcotics
trafficking received an award from the Tennessee Press
Association.